No Phosphorous?

[MOW ED]

I have a pretty balanced fert program and have had great results over the years. The lawns advertise themselves and all my customers have the last green lawn in the fall as well as the first green lawn in the spring.

There are some areas in this state (or should I say the state of Madison our Capitol) that have banned phosphorous in the fertilizer. Many reasons are behind this and I am sure there must be water quality issues, on and on.

This year my supplier talked me into a zero phos blend for my winter ap. I gave it a try for a few reasons. I am not a tree huggin green activist, my main reason was that he had lots of this in stock and I got it at the same price as my usual blend. It also had a few extras like 4%iron. I don't feel that skipping the phos for one application is gonna hurt anything but I am looking for opinions form the experts. My county still allows phos and I think it always will unless the state mandates something thru the tree hugger lobby. My supplier told me that studies were done in Madison and they have found that there is lots of phosphorous bound up in the heavy clay soil and that any SCU fert helps to release this phosphorous. I am interested in scientific data.

My final round is all down and I will be checking the results over time but give me your experience as well as opinions on no phos fertilizers. Is this the wave of the future and what can be the downside for the lawns?

 

[Grassmechanic]

Mow Ed - get used to using no phosphorus ferts. All states in the Great
Lakes basin have enacted, or have legislation pending, that will ban the use of phosphorus ferts in the near future. I really doesn't bother me because of the fact that turf is a very low user of phosphorus and that there is quite a bit of natural phosphorus that is available already in the soil (at least in this part of MI). Anyways, I've been using no phosphorus ferts for the last 2 years and I have not noticed any difference in the turf.

 

[Mscotrid]

"No Phos No Phos"

Roberto Duran.........

 

[Runner]

I've been using no phosphorus ferts for the last 2 years and I have not noticed any difference in the turf.

Same here. I was a bit disappointed at first - not knowing the outcome, but all is well. Our last round has about 3%, but that's not enough to even count when it comes to phos..

 

[jajwrigh]

I am not going to put down any phos either for my last round..

 

[GreenQuest Lawn]

Here in my area (right by lake MI) the lake communities near the big lake and even inland have banned phos, So instead of buying two formulations I have gone to a complete no phos fert for everyone.

 

[BigCity]

Yeah the Lesco store in the Fox Valley has virtually no P in their fert's. They said that it wasn't really intentional, but come on! I still want to put some P down in a winterizer - the rest of the year I would agree you don't need much.